Budgeting for Immigration Enforcement A Path to Better Performance (2011) / Chapter Skim
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3 Recent Patterns of Unauthorized Immigration
3 Recent Patterns of Unauthorized Immigration
Pages 25-38
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From page 25... ...
Given the study's focus, emphasis is given to the role of more intense enforcement and its effects on both the flows unauthorized immigrants and the stock (population) of such immigrants living in the United States.
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From page 26... ...
, but a major reduction in the stock of unauthorized immigrants through legalization did occur following the passage of the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, when 2.6 million formerly unauthorized immigrants obtained permanent resident status.2 The distinction between stocks and flows highlights the fact that immigration enforcement involves two distinct but interrelated objectives: limiting the number of unauthorized entries and reducing the size of the resident undocumented population.3 The number of unauthorized entries depends most on the demand for labor, but it also reflects access to legal avenues for entry. When there are a relatively large number of visas for permanent residence or temporary labor relative to the demand, the number of undocumented entrants decreases.
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From page 27... ...
According to the most recent estimates, about 3 million Central American immigrants lived in the United States in 2010, compared with more than 12 million immigrants from Mexico. However, many Central Americans enter the United States illegally, and their movement generates enforcement actions at the southwestern U.S.
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From page 28... ...
Virtually all of the Mexican immigrants were in the United States legally. In 1970, Mexico's census count was 48 million, so the Mexicans in the United States represented about 1.4 percent of the combined Mexican population of the two countries (see Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Geografía, 2005)
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From page 29... ...
. The number and rapid growth of the unauthorized immigrant population is even more remarkable in light of the fact that about 2.7 million undocumented Mexican immigrants attained legal resident status around 1990 as a result of the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (IRCA)
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From page 30... ...
Central American Immigrants There are many parallels between the growth of the Mexican and the Central American immigrant populations, notwithstanding the much longer history of movement between Mexico and the United States. In 1970, there were only about 120,000 Central American immigrants living in the country.
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From page 31... ...
, while apprehensions continued to fall. Overall, the flow of migrants from Mexico during the 6 Estimatesof annual immigrant inflows from Mexico and Central America were prepared by the committee.
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The gross number of Central Americans coming to the United States peaked in 2000 (at 136,000) and then dropped in 2001-2004 with the post-2000 U.S.
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From page 33... ...
The two numbers are not necessarily incompatible, however, as the former is an estimate of the gross flow from Mexico, including both permanent movers to the United States as well as temporary migrants, while the latter is an estimate of the flow of new permanent movers only. The Mexican data show a net movement of about 575,000, which is closer to the U.S.
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From page 34... ...
Massey and Riosmena (2010) similarly found no significant effect of linewatch hours on the like lihood of undocumented migration from several Latin American nations, including Mexico.
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From page 35... ...
. A third reason is that, in the long term, the earnings gains from migration far outweigh border crossing costs, which also leads to little deterrent effect.
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From page 36... ...
This "caging effect" of tougher enforcement on return migration is one of the most notable consequences of the immigration enforcement build-up since 1993, account ing for a significant portion of the growth in the stock of undocumented Mexicans during this period. Among migrants from Central America, the data show that enforcement also interacts with the state of the U.S.
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From page 37... ...
, the changing size of cohorts entering the Mexican labor force explained about 40 percent of the temporal variation in total migration from Mexico over the past two decades of the 20th century, which suggests that the declining growth cohort size since 2000 has played some role in recent declines. Projections suggest the decline in cohort growth will continue into the future (Hanson and McIntosh, 2009)
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From page 38... ...
With the resources of many components of the immigration enforcement system already stretched thin (see Chapter 4) , it is unclear how the relevant agencies and the federal court system could handle higher migration volumes in the current system of "enforcement with consequences." The evidence that enforcement has been only minimally effective in reducing unauthorized immigration is another challenge to the immigration system and suggests that agen cies need to pay attention not only to the level of resources required to maintain current enforcement efforts at the same or higher levels but also to consider whether alternative ways of using enforcement resources -- affecting either risk of apprehension or severity of sanctions, or both -- would be more effective in achieving the goals of U.S.
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